Old and new risks: In pursuit of other forms of protection

Abstract

Based on the concept of health as openness to risk, as outlined by Canguilhem in 1946, the authors seek to distinguish between risks that require social protection networks and those that should be tolerated as part of the human condition. To understand this issue, the article analyzes the historical emergence of the risk concept as viewed in early industrial society and its link to the idea of dangerousness and risk as analyzed by Robert Castel in his work From Dangerousness to Risk and L'Insegurité Sociale: Qu'est-ce Qu'etre Protegé? The authors discuss the continuities and discontinuities in these classical risks, with their social protection structures, and the emerging awareness of multiple hazards in late modernity.